4-volume boxed set. The Golden Lotus, which Pearl S Buck has called 'the greatest novel of physical love which China has produced' was first published in England in 1939. It is now published unexpurgated, giving for the first time a complete and full translation into English. The character of the book is such that it must inevitably be studied by those interested in the cultural history of China. It is a national work in the sense that the Decameron, the Arabian Nights, and the Canterbury Tales are national works. The Golden Lotus is a picture of family life in a polygamous household, told with an extreme frankness and wealth of detail for which it would be hard to find a parallel in any other piece of fiction into the world.